Ronald, I’m fascinated with colors and thoroughly enjoyed your essay and photos.

Do you know what the plant is in your lead photo? My app says Mickey Mouse plant but then goes on to say it has yellow flowers. If that’s the correct plant, is your photo of a seed pod? I also searched the plant that your app couldn’t identify and mine couldn’t either. Very odd.

I have no luck planting poinsettias, although I see huge ones in yards in my city. Mine never survive until winter.

Men and women often see different colors or shades of colors. Men, as I’m sure you know, have a high rate of blue/green color blindness or confusion. My husband often sees blue as green and green as gray. He has a shirt that’s a mossy green - a lovely shade - but he sees it as gray.

The school colors for the University of Florida are orange and blue, and the blue leans heavily towards purple. That blue is so unique, it’s been named Gator Blue. It’s a difficult shade to replicate in clothing. To me, the color in your last photo is more purple than blue (your wife is correct, of course!) but more purple than Gator Blue.

My sister used to be a color-matcher for a plastics company. The required skills for that job were the natural ability to detect very subtle differences in shades of colors and to be able to create a dye formula to replicate those shades in whatever plastic product was being dyed. She did a lot of color-matching for Rubbermaid. Their various products were made with different sorts of plastics, all with a different composition that absorbed and held colors differently. If they came up with a new color for a product line - let’s say a lime green color - she would have to create unique dye formulas that would replicate that color in each product. I definitely don’t share that skill with her! I certainly see colors better than my husband but her ability to detect the smallest shade difference was extraordinary.

And, lastly, as always, your flower photos are amazing!